Previews: Battle Royale on the High Seas

Do you love Fortnite? Can’t scratch that itch for Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds? Ever wish it was more… pirate-y? Well here comes Maelstrom with its unique naval warfare system where you play against other players as well as monsters. Like most Battle Royale games you are pitted against other enemy players and the zone shrinks on you as you play, however, in this game when you get caught outside the zone you are at risk of a giant leviathan destroying your ship. The year of Battle Royale games continues with Maelstrom.

advertisement

Another thing that is unique about this game is the ability to level up your ship and buy new ships outside of the battles themselves. There are three levels of ships that you can get from small to large. Each different level of ship will give you different stats, for example, a low tier Human ship might be fast and maneuverable but the medium Human ship may be a little bit slower and stronger. The game affords you the ability to pick ships from one of three different races, Humans, Orcs, and of course those fat lovable Dwarves.

Each race gives you a different way to play the game and has their own benefits for battling others. For example, Humans can sail faster, Orcs have great ramming abilities, and Dwarves, and well what else? They have good armor. Each ship shoots cannonballs at one another as they try to do maximum damage to the enemy players. Each ship has fires in different ways as well. The Orc ships can fire from any direction as you spin your camera around, the Humans and the Dwarves have more traditional firing arcs as well for their broadsides.

The objective of this game is to plunder as much gold as possible while attacking the other players, and coming out on top as the number one survivor. So far I have only participated in solo matches where there are a total of 15 players to survive against, yourself included in the 15. Right now party options are available so get out there and sail with your friends.

No matter if you play by yourself or with a team you will have a lot of fun. For an early access game this is very fun, and I can’t say that about very many early access games through steam. The inclusion of sea creatures into the map in the dark water or even throughout the map is a welcome feature, and this brings high seas battles to the front, where they belong. The naval battles on the high seas is what I loved in other games like Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, and this game has a lot of similar customizations while being completely different.

Developed by Gunpowder Games, LLC, this game promises to be one of the best Battle Royale games I have played, and that is saying a lot because I have well over 800 hours in Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds. Between ramming the enemy with your ship and sinking them, and giving them the broadside of their life, Maelstrom is an early access game that is currently available on steam for the low price of 19.99. If you would like to experience the high seas in awesome fashion, join me and get ready to loot and plunder me mateys. Yar!